Thursday, May 31, 2012

What's In A Name?

Does your name have a meaning (imi)?
What does your name mean?

My name "Sonny" is actually a nickname (adana). Many people use their nicknames in daily life and keep their given names for official business and paperwork.

How did I get my nickname? Well, from my father.
My father's name was Heyward Bruce Gardner. When I was born my parents "named me after" my father;
so, I became Heyward Bruce Gardner Jr. (junior).
As I am the "son" of my father (father & son), and we share the same name, my father automatically became  H.B.G. Senior while I became H.B.G. Junior; or nicknamed "Sonny", from "son" (of the father with the same name).
My name does not mean "sunny" like a "sunny day" or, "sunny weather".
My family also could have nicknamed me "Junior".
They could have also named me H.B.G. II, or, Heyward Bruce Gardner "the Second" (II = the Second).

This way of naming a son with the father's name is an old formal custom. Some people continue this tradition for generations (sedai). For example: King Henry VIII (the Eighth).

Most names carry some kind of meaning in themselves. Usually you can learn the meaning by checking the root word or words used from the culture the name comes from. In Japan the meaning of a name depends on the meaning of the kanji characters used to write the name. I enjoy asking my Japanese students what their names mean. It is fascinating to study the meaning of the kanji characters that form a person's name in Japan.

In the West, most names originate from old European languages. A family name can often give you a hint as to what your ancestor's main occupation (job) was or where they lived. For example, if your last name is 'Smith' then your ancestors were probably smiths, (black)smiths or metal workers of some kind. If your last name is 'Baker' then your ancestors were probably busy baking bread. Same goes for names like 'Fisher', 'Farmer', 'Taylor' (tailor), etc...

Names like Anderson = Son of Anders, Jefferson = Son of Jeffers, Michaelson = Son of Michael etc..

Take my first name for example: Heyward....
Is a German name that means "The Brave One, or the Chief Guardian".
Hey = Hay = hoshikusa, the grass horses eat; OR, Harvest = shukaku.
Ward = hogosha = Guardian.
So.... "Heyward" = "Guardian or Keeper of the Harvest".

And my middle name.... Bruce = Woods = mori, or forest. A popular boy's name with French origins but made popular in Scotland in the 14th century (1300's). My father's family is Celtic; mainly Scottish, Irish and British. My mother's is Scandanavian; mainly Norwegian and Laplander mixed with some German.

The family name Gardner is obviously a gardener = "Keeper of the Garden".
This indicates that, very long ago, my father's family's main occupation was gardening.

So my name is very organic, possibly even pagan.

I nicknamed my wife "Mia" when we lived in the USA because Mizuho Otahara is hard for Americans to remember and pronounce correctly. Her name is, like my own, also very organic.

Mizuho = Is a classic name for Japan. I mean the whole country of Japan used to be called 'Mizuho' by it's native population. It means "Fresh Rice" and conjures images of abundant, green rice paddies.
Her family name, Otahara = A very big field, or rice paddy.

Together we represent a perfect balance of the abundance of Nature and the nurturing and care and protection of it.

Please refrain from any "oyyaji gyagu" (= old man < bad > joke) comments about "the gardener plowing the field". Speaking of which....

We are now 21 weeks pregnant so we are talking about baby names.
Next week we should discover our baby's gender or sex (sei). That should help us narrow down our choices. Naming a person is a very big responsibility. Adam had the responsibility to name every animal in the Garden of Eden in Christian mythology.

We love the Gaelic (old Irish) name Aidan or Aiden for a boy. It means "Fiery"; "of Fire".
It also bears resemblance to Eden, The Primeval Garden, 'Eiden no sono',  = The Garden of Eden. Also, an angel with a fiery sword was stationed at the entrance to the Garden of Eden as a Guardian (= Heyward).

This name Aidan can also be for a girl; but, I think the spelling could be feminized a bit.
My favorite poet, Edgar Allen Poe, wrote in his famous poem 'The Raven' :

"Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -"

Aidenn is a lovely form of Aiden or Eden and is a more feminine spelling with the double "n".
Lenore is a nice name too, but we want to avoid any name with  "L" and "R" because it will be horribly mispronounced in Japan, i.e. "Renor" instead of Lenore, "Riri" instead of Lily etc...

As for middle names we like Wolf for a boy and Deanna or Dianna for a girl.
Aidan / Aiden Wolf for a boy, and Aidenn Dianna / Deanna for a girl.
What do you think?

Deanna or Dianna's "Di" / "De" pronounced to rhyme with "sea".
Not "Die"-anna, like Princess Diana. I don't think "die" sounds as sweet (die = shinu).
Also, I have a sister named Deann, but we call her "DeeDee".
Wolf is a powerful name and not an uncommon name in Northern Europe where my ancestors are from.
Dianna or Deanna is of course Diana = the Roman name for the Goddess Artemis.

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions?
Do you want to share the meaning of your name?
What's in a name?

Friday, May 18, 2012

Turning Japanese; or, Accepting the Uselessness and Futility of Japanese Bureaucracy

We decided to make today the day we would finally change Mia's last name to Gardner for convenience sake, and the sake of Baby-To-Be. Mia has kept her family name, even since we married nearly 7 years ago, because it just seemed like too much trouble to change her name on everything like passport, marriage license, etc...

We were right.

I don't mean to bash Japan... just it's bureaucracy!

I certainly didn't expect this to be done in one day.

In the words of Alex Kerr (see my previous blog on his insightful book: 'Dogs and Demons; Tales From the Darkside of Japan'): "Japan's bureaucracy has been much studied, mostly with admiration, by Western analysts, who marvel at its extremely subtle means of control (my emphasis), its tentacles reaching downward into industry and upward into politics".

The Japanese bureaucracy (kanryoseido) is extraordinarily sophisticated, complex, often shady, and actually kind of ritualistic. It seems that in order to accomplish almost anything in Japan one must first fill out paperwork to obtain a certificate from a clerk at one office, bring said certificate to another office (often in another part of the city, requiring a train ride plus expense and time) where you take a number, fill out more paperwork, wait until you are told that the certificate or paperwork you have is insufficient, OR it requires a type of official postal stamp of a certain cash value one must buy at a convenience store next door (because government offices do not accept cash) where, after getting said stamp and returning to the clerk one must produce ones personal signature seal ('hanko') which is used as a signature. You make your little red stamp with your hanko and are given more paperwork telling you to return on such-n-such day when.......

You get the idea. It's a never ending circle of paperwork madness that ultimately means nothing but the destruction of millions of trees.

Mia checked the Osaka courthouse website, knew what was required for applying for a name change, and we decided to go there. I even brought my gaikokujin card (legal alien resident card) and passport.
First, we stopped at the local city office branch at our train station for Mia to fill out a paper stating the reason she wanted to get a copy of her family registry. After a few minutes she got a fresh "official" copy of her family's 'koseki tohon' (family registry, including dates of birth, our marriage with my name in katakana scrpt etc..) printed on it's "official" watermarked, and decorated with roses Toyonaka City document paper by the ubiquitous, artificially over-obsequious clerks (there were two, one man to do the work and one old woman to hover next to him, breathing down his neck, whose job seemed to be nothing but to repeat "I'm sorry" and "excuse me" and to answer the phone to say "I'm sorry" and "excuse me".

Next we took the subway to the Osaka courthouse, (changing trains once), where we took a number, Mia filled out the change of family name application form. When our number came up we sat with a man who told us that we needed first to go to the Toyonaka City main office and get a document, the name of which is so long Mia can't remember it so he had to write it down, that states that I can legally reside in Toyonaka City.

Of course I had my gaikokujin card (legal resident alien card) and my passport with my spouse visa (which both had been updated just over a month ago) with me. However, I knew without even asking that offering these useless little votives unto the altar of Japanese Bureaucracy would be totally futile. The clerk would have simply apologized profusely and stated the officially approved statement stating that all required documents must be submitted together for consideration of approval. In other words, The Beast must be fed and it's sacrifice of choice is endless reams of paper;  paper that has been specially printed, stamped, sealed, approved and won by hours of pursuit and waiting.

This is how things are done here and it doesn't surprise me anymore. But it does piss me off a bit.
This endless game of collect the stamps is deeply imprinted onto the Japanese psyche. Nothing seems worthy of pursuit here unless you get an officially sealed document for your trouble. Education, Career, Sports, Hobbies... everybody needs to seek validation, to show a piece of paper that says: "I DID IT!". I PERSEVERED! I ENDURED! GAMBARIMASHITA!
Everybody is so used to it here they know of no other way. Schools teach children not to speak out; hence activists are rare. As a result, nothing changes... especially Japanese Bureaucracy.

"The real purpose of education in Japan is not education but the habit of obedience to a group"
                                                                  Alex Kerr       'Dogs and Demons'


Everybody in Japan has at least one 'hanko', a signature seal like a mini rubber stamp, but usually made of wood, stone or horn. I just got mine recently. It is made of horn, has my name in katakana, the script used for foreign words and names because it seemed easier than finding kanji characters to make my name.

Its official. I think I'm turning Japanese.